Almost all the political forces taking part in the
elections to the Duma are by now finally organised. At any rate, the main
party alignments have taken such definite shape that there can be no
question of any serious and material changes.

The government began the election campaign long ago. The Rights, the
nationalists, and the Octobrists are “at work” with the obvious
assistance of the authorities. Rech recently published, and many
newspapers have reprinted, the circular sent by the governors, to the
police chiefs about the adoption of “measures” to prevent “Left”
candidates from being elected as delegates (particularly from the peasants)
or electors. This circular lifts the veil somewhat from the “election”
machinery of the Ministry of the Interior. Everything possible—and
impossible—will undoubtedly be done in this quarter against the
opposition. Not for nothing did Premier Kokovtsov, in his speech to the
Moscow merchants, lay so much stress on the perniciousness of “opposition
for the sake of opposition”.

But while there can be no doubt about the zeal of the government and
the police in the elections, it is just as undoubted that a widespread
“leftward” swing has taken, or is taking, place in the sentiments of the
voters. No stratagems of the government can alter this fact. On the
contrary, all that stratagems and “measures” can accomplish is to
increase discontent. And it is easy to understand that while this
discontent among the big bourgeoisie is expressed by Shubinsky’s
“opposition” speech, by Ryabushinsky’s “cautious” allusion to the
desirability of “cultured methods of administration”, or by caustic digs
at the Ministry on the part of the Cadet
Rech, there is much keener and more serious discontent in the
large circle of the “small people” who are dependent on the
Ryabushinskys, Golovins and others.

What are the political alignments that have taken definite shape in the
camp of the opposition, which gives political expression to this
discontent? One group that has taken shape is the “responsible”,
liberal-monarchist opposition of the Cadets and the Progressists. The bloc
of these two parties clearly denotes that the Cadets are much more “to the
right” than they seem to be.

Another group that has taken shape is that of the working-class
democracy, which has undertaken the task, not of “supporting” the
Cadet-Progressist opposition, but of utilising the latter’s
conflicts with the Rights (including the nationalists and the Octobrists)
to enlighten and organise the democratic forces. Lastly, the group of the
bourgeois democracy has also taken shape: at the conference of the
Trudoviks it declared in favour of agreements “in the first place, with
the Social-Democrats”, but it did not put forward any definite slogan
calling for a fight against the counter revolutionary liberalism of the
Cadets, which means that in practice it is wavering between the two.

What are the conclusions to be drawn from this pre-election “political
mobilisation” of the parties? The first and principal conclusion, which
the working-class democrats drew long ago, is that there are
three, not two, camps engaged in the contest. The liberals are
eager to make it appear that the contest is really between two camps; and
the liquidators, as has been shown on many occasions, are constantly
slipping into an acceptance of the same view. “For or against a
constitution?” is how the Cadets formulate the difference between the two
camps. Actually, however, this formulation defines nothing at all, because
the Octobrists, too, avow that they are constitutionalists, and indeed,
generally speaking, it should be a question not of what can or cannot be
called a constitution, but of the exact content of certain liberal or
democratic demands.

It is the content of the demands, the real distinctions between the
class tendencies, that differentiates the three camps: the Right, or
government, camp; the camp of the liberal, or liberal-monarchist,
bourgeoisie, which takes a
counter-revolutionary stand; and the democratic camp. Furthermore, it is
not so much a question of “chances” under the existing electoral system,
for the issue goes much deeper—it concerns the whole character of
political propaganda during the elections, the whole ideological and
political content of the election campaign.

In view of this state of affairs, the “strategy” of the liberals is
daily directed towards taking the leadership of the “whole”
opposition movement into their hands. The liberal Zaprosy Zhizni
blurted out the “secret” of this strategy, so carefully kept by
Rech. “The Progressists,” writes Mr.
R. B.[1] in Zaprosy Zhizni No. 13, “have opened their campaign
by a promising move [!]—they formed the so-called ‘non-partisan
Progressist bloc’, which proved from the first to have a strong appeal for
the political opposition circles to the right of the Cadets.” On the other
hand, “the election platform of the Trudovik group, despite its
vagueness—in part due to it, perhaps—meets the requirements of large
sections of the democratic intelligentsia”.
“Under certain conditions, the Trudovik group to the left of the Cadets
could perform a role similar to that undertaken by the Progressist group to
the right of the Cadets. The opposition front would then be made up of
mobile and wavering, but flexible extreme flanks, and an immobile but
persistent centre, which strategically has its advantage in the political
struggle as well.”

What is in the thoughts of the Milyukovs and Shingaryovs is on R. B.’s
tongue! It is precisely two “flexible” flanks that the Cadets need: the
Progressists for netting the bourgeois June Third voter, and the “vague”
democrats for netting the democratic-minded public. Indeed, this
“strategy” follows from the very nature of the Cadet Party. It is the
party of the counter-revolutionary liberals, which by fraudulent means has
won the support of certain democratic strata, such as a section of the
shop-assistants, office clerks, etc. What such a party needs is exactly the
“non-partisan Progressist” as its real class bulwark, and the vague
democrat as an attractive sales ticket.

The landlord Yefremov and the millionaire Ryabushinsky may be described
as typical Progressists. The typical vague democrat is represented by the
Trudovik in the Narodnik
camp and the liquidator in the Marxist camp. Take the whole history of the
Cadet Party, and you will find that its method has always been
democracy in words, and liberalism “of the Yefremov brand and acceptable
to Ryabushinsky” in deeds. From the defeat of the plan for local land
committees in 1906 to the vote for the budget in the Third Duma, or to
Milyukov’s[2] “London” slogans, etc., we see this very nature
of the Cadet Party and its sham-democratic attire.

Mr. R. B. of Zaprosy Zhizni is so very clumsy that he
inadvertently told the truth, which had been carefully kept from the
democrats and muddled by the liberals. The programme of the Progressists,
he confesses, “puts the issue on a firm and realistic basis! And yet that
programme has nothing except general phrases in a purely Octobrist style
(as, for instance, “the complete realisation of the Manifesto of
October 17”[3]). What is described as a firm and realistic basis is
the basis of a bourgeois liberalism so moderate, so mild and impotent, that
it would be simply ridiculous to pin any hopes on it. Those who were
“Peaceful
Renovators”[4] in 1907, those who in the Third Duma steered a middle
course between the Cadets and the Octobrists, are described as a firm and
realistic basis!

The millionaire Ryabushinsky is a Progressist. Utro
Rossii[5] is the mouthpiece of this and similar Progressists. And
none other than Rech, the paper of the Cadets, who have formed a
bloc with the Progressists, wrote: “Utro Rossii, organ of the
Moscow industrialists, is gratified [by Kokovtsov’s speech] more than
anyone else.... It echoes Krestovnikov:
‘Commercial and industrial Moscow can feel satisfied.’” And
Rech added for its own part: “As far as Golos Moskvy and
Utro Rossii are concerned, they are willing not to pursue any
line, and feel perfectly satisfied.”

The question arises: where is the evidence that Yefremov or other
Progressists have a “line”? There is no such evidence. For
democrats to support this sort of progressism, whether it is called
progressism or Cadetism, would mean only surrendering their position. But
using the conflicts between the bourgeoisie and the landlords, between the
liberals and the Rights, is another matter. That is the only way in which a
democrat can formulate his task.

To fulfil this task, to politically enlighten and organise
the very wide masses that are economically dependent on the Yefremovs and
Ryabushinskys, one has to be well aware of the counter-revolutionary nature
of Cadet and Progressist liberalism. The lack of this awareness is the
chief defect of both the Trudoviks and the liquidators. The Trudoviks say
nothing at all about the class characteristics of liberalism. The
liquidators utter phrases about “wresting the Duma from the hands
of the reactionaries”, about the Cadets and Progressists coming closer to
power, and about the historically progressive work they are doing (see
Martov and Dan). Taken as a whole, it adds up to that very role of a Cadet
“flank” which pleases R. B. so much.

To be sure, these are not the subjective wishes of the Trudoviks and
the liquidators and, indeed, it is not a question of their subjective
plans, but of the objective alignment of the social forces. And in spite of
all the adherents of the idea of two camps, in spite of the malicious
shouts about disorganisation in the workers’ democratic movement (see the
same article by Mr. R. B.), this alignment clearly shows us that a third
camp has formed. Its line is clearly presented and is known to all. The
anti-liquidationist workers are pursuing this line, rallying all the
democrats in the struggle both against the Rights and
against the liberals. Without entertaining any illusions about the impotent
liberalism of the Cadets, who are grovelling before the reaction in all
fundamental questions, the workers are using clashes between that
liberalism and the reaction to promote their own cause, their own class
organisation, their own democracy, which is now quietly ripening in the
broad mass of the people enslaved by the Yefremovs and Ryabushinskys.

Thanks to the anti-liquidationist tactics of the workers, the fight
between the Rights and the “responsible” opposition must, and will, serve
to develop the political consciousness and independent organisation of an
“opposition” which lays no claim to the scarcely honourable title of
“responsible”.

Notes

[3]This refers to the tsar’s Manifesto of October 17, 1905, published at
the height of the All-Russia October political strike. The Manifesto
promised “civil liberties” and a “legislative” Duma. It was a political
stratagem of the autocracy designed to gain time, split the revolutionary
forces, foil the strike and suppress the revolution. It was a concession
wrested from the tsarist regime by the revolution, but that concession by
no means decided the fate of the revolution, as the liberals and Mensheviks
claimed. The Bolsheviks exposed the real meaning of the Manifesto. On
October 18 (31), 1905, the Central Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. issued its
appeal “To the Russian People” revealing the spurious nature of the
Manifesto and calling for a continued struggle. “We still need the
strike,” said the appeal, “to show our enemies that they cannot appease
us with a mere slip of paper, and that we want genuine rights and genuine
strength.” (Leaflets of the Bolshevik Organisations During the First
Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. Part I, Moscow, 1956, p. 185,
Russ. ed).

[4]This refers to the Party of Peaceful Renovation, a
constitutional-monarchist organisation of the big bourgeoisie and the
landlords. It took final shape in 1906, following the dissolution of the
First Duma. It grouped the “Left” Octobrists and Right Cadets. Among its
leaders were P. A. Heyden, N. P. Lvov, P. P. Ryabushinsky,
M. A. Stakhovich, Y. N. and G. N. Trubetskoi, and D. N. Shipov.

The Peaceful Renovators’ programme was close to the Octobrist
programme. It defended the interests of the commercial and industrial
bourgeoisie and the landlords who conducted their farming on capitalist
lines. Lenin called the Party of Peaceful Renovation a “party of peaceful
plunder”. In the Third Duma this party merged with the Party of Democratic
Reform into the Progressist group.

[5]Utro Rossii (Morning of Russia)—a daily newspaper
published in Moscow from September 1907 to April 1918 (with a break in
1908). Although it called itself a “non-partisan democratic publication”,
it reflected the interests of the Russian imperialist bourgeoisie. It was a
Progressist mouthpiece subsidised by Ryabushinsky’s bank. It was closed
down early in April 1918 for slanderous statements against Soviet
rule. From the middle of April to July 1918 it was published under the
title of Zarya Rossii (Dawn of Russia).